Music Performance Commons^™

Duende: Four Preludes For Symphonic Wind Ensemble By Luis Serrano Alarcón: Conductor’S Guide, Spanish Historical Background And Influence, Kenneth Javier Iyescas

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Luis Serrano Alarcón is one of the most important and relevant composers of our time. He is sought after as a composer, lecturer, and conductor throughout the world. His works have been performed in over 30 countries worldwide by some of the leading musical ensembles in the United States, Europe, and Asia, as well as being highly decorated by winning many prestigious composition contests including the International Band Competition Contest of Corciano, Italy.

Born in Valencia, Spain, Alarcón is relatively self-taught in composition, which is a testament to his natural-born gift for composition. His compositional output ranges from the traditional …

Redefining The Performance Degree Curriculum For The Crossover Saxophonist, Ian M. Cruz

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Many collegiate saxophone performance degree programs are overwhelmingly classical, adopting from other performance programs in the Western music tradition. However, there is a growing number of saxophone compositions that are “crossover” in nature. Crossover is a term used to describe the fusion of popular music styles in a classical setting. There is also evidence that collegiate music education as a whole is moving towards a more diverse curriculum, which emphasizes ethnomusicology. Due to this trend in composition and education, it is becoming increasingly important that saxophonists have the training of both classical and jazz disciplines.

The problem is that while …

A Conductor’S Analysis Of Veljo Tormis’ Looduspildid, John David Frizzell

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Estonian composer Veljo Tormis (1930-2017) is one of the most prolific in his country’s history. A significant portion of his writing has been for choirs. Tormis composed most of his works under Soviet rule. During this communist reign of Estonia, Tormis turned to using traditional music. The source material for a large portion of Tormis’ choral output is regilaul, a type of ancient Estonian folk song. In 1991, Estonia gained their independence, thereby allowing Tormis’ compositions to be more easily seen, heard, and performed around the world.

This dissertation presents a conductor’s analysis of a set of choral cycles …

The Search For Consistent Intonation: An Exploration And Guide For Violoncellists, Daniel Hoppe

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This paper provides a system that helps diagnose and address the specific challenge to cellists of intonation in any passage. Learning to play consistently in tune is essential for every cellist. In the over three hundred years of cello history, teachers have tried approaching the topic from a variety of perspectives. While each technique is useful in its own right, there is scant attention to how they work together. Viewing intonation through its component sub-skills is the first step toward integrating existing exercises and paving the way for further advances in pedagogy. The following paper categorizes training techniques according to …

A History, Analysis, And Performance Guide To Samuel Barber’S Canzonetta For Oboe And String Orchestra, Angela C. Sallas

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This dissertation examines Samuel Barber’s Canzonetta for Oboe and String Orchestra, which was intended to be the central movement of an oboe concerto commissioned by the New York Philharmonic. The Canzonetta for Oboe and String Orchestra is representative of Barber’s tendency towards vocal lyricism and neo-romantic tonality, serving as a representation of his compositional style. This document will explore the technical and expressive demands found in Barber’s writing for the oboe and will offer solutions for any problematic elements—including those specific to the oboe itself. It will also suggest practice techniques for the execution of these difficulties. This dissertation …

Singing Portuguese Nasal Vowels: Practical Strategies For Managing Nasality In Brazilian Art Songs, André Campelo

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The articulation of Portuguese nasalized vowels poses some articulatory problems accompanied by negative acoustic effects for the performance of Brazilian art songs. The main objective was to find strategies that permit the singer to conciliate an idiomatic pronunciation of these vowels with a well-balanced resonance, a desirable quality in classical singing. In order to devise these strategies, the author examined sources dealing with nasalized vowels from varied perspectives: acoustic properties of vowel nasalization, phonetic and phonological aspects ofBrazilian Portuguese (BP), historical views on nasality in singing, and recent vocal pedagogy research. In addition to the overall loss of sonority, the …

The Cadenzas Of The First Modern Guitar Concertos, Carlos Ricardo Saeb Valenzuela

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This research project explores the resources employed in the cadenzas of the first four distinguished guitar concertos of the twentieth-century. The purpose of this research is to establish the influence and impact of these works in the development of a new idiomatic guitar language. Although the first known twentieth-century guitar concerto is Rafael Adame’s Concierto Clásico (1930), it has been largely ignored and has had no significant influence on subsequent generations. Therefore, the focus of this study is on the following concertos: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Concerto in Re for Guitar and Orchestra Op. 99 (1939), Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez (1939), …

When Unexpected Beauty Burns Like Sunlight On The Sea: Songs Of Wintter Watts, Composer And Sara Teasdale, Poet, Casey A. Huggins

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This document is an overview of Wintter Watts’ song settings of Sara Teasdale poems. Watts set 15 Teasdale poems as a part of his repertoire of approximately 200 art songs, both published and unpublished. Included are a thorough investigation of the culture of the period of American history of which Watts and Teasdale emerged as artists, biographies of each artist, with particular emphasis placed on Watts’ life and work, and theoretical and poetic analyses of each piece. Additionally, teachers of singing will find the appendix useful to explore options for student repertoire.

The Wind Music Of Steve Danyew: A Discussion And Analysis Of Three Significant Wind Compositions, Michael C. Black

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Despite being active as a composer for a little less than a decade, Steve Danyew has established himself as a successful composer of wind music. Danyew has produced a surprisingly large amount of significant works for various music ensembles in a relatively short span of time. Danyew’s compositions for winds are some of his most frequently performed for any medium.

Three of Danyew’s compositions for winds stand out as artistically significant, namely Lauda, Alcott Songs, and Magnolia Star. One of his first compositions for wind band, Lauda, is an award-winning work that has been performed by …

March Performance Practices Of Henry Fillmore With Style Guides And Historical Editions Of Selected Works, James Robert Daughters

Theses and Dissertations--Music

With a career spanning over four decades, Henry Fillmore earned wide recognition as an important and prolific composer of marches and trombone smears in the wind band medium. While he contributed significantly to chamber music, solo literature, vocal settings, and arrangements for band, his compositions for wind band have arguably provided his most universal acclaim. Fillmore’s published marches are unique in that scores rarely had performance markings and contained little more than notes and repeat signs. Fillmore conducted most of his marches and altered march strains, changed orchestration, and added stylistic markings that were not indicated in the original printed …

Synchrony Of The Sublime: A Performer's Guide To Duke Ellington's Wordless Melodies For Soprano, Lisa M. Clark

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This monograph provides an in-depth examination of the background, musical, and performance issues related to Duke Ellington’s wordless melodies, as well as epigrammatic biographies of Ellington and three female vocalists whose voices he employed as instruments: Adelaide Hall, Kay Davis, and Alice Babs. As early as the twenties, Ellington innovatively used the voice as a wordless instrumental color—an idea he extended into both his secular and sacred works. His iconoclastic instrumentalization of the soprano voice in compositions such as “Creole Love Call”, “Minnehaha”, “Transblucency”, “On a Turquoise Cloud”, and “T.G.G.T.” merits consideration by scholars and performers alike; these artistically complex …

The Fall Of The Tenor With The Rise Of The Larynx, Gregory Turay

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The range and use of the tenor voice in classical music has long been established since the late 19^th century. It is widely accepted among pedagogues that the range is C3-C5 (with obvious exceptions depending on the fach). However, with the advent and development of the American Musical as a genre since the early 20^th century, the ‘tenor’ has taken on an entirely new direction and range altogether. Several well-known sources have stated that the ‘Broadway tenor’ has a range of A2-A4. This is (as it widely accepted in the classical profession) the range of a baritone. The …

A Select Survey Of Choral Arrangements Based On The Songs Of Stephen Foster Tracing Developments In Music And Textual Changes Through The Twentieth And Twenty-First Centuries, Perry K. Ward

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Stephen Foster is acknowledged as America’s first composer of popular music. His legacy can be seen in the number of songs that are embedded in our cultural heritage – “Oh! Susanna,” “Beautiful Dreamer,” and “My Old Kentucky Home,” are but a very few of his most popular works. Stephen Foster’s songs have been incorporated into every facet of American culture including both popular and classical musical culture, television, and film. However, his legacy is complicated as it is tainted by connections to blackface minstrelsy in some works. This document seeks to trace the threads of racial sensitivity and cultural appropriation …

On Unaccompanied Horn Music, Jason D. Klinect

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Unaccompanied music provides a host of challenges for solo musicians, and especially for wind players. The performer cannot rely on accompaniment for embouchure rest or for realization of the harmonic content, due to only being able to play one pitch at a time. An unaccompanied musician has to breathe life into the music by themselves, requiring an intimate knowledge of the music, even moreso than is already required. The pacing of the music, the dynamics, phrasing, and articulation need to be clearly conveyed to the audience by the performer alone. Likely due to the horn not having valves until the …

NapoléOn Coste: Composer And Guitarist In The Musical Life Of 19th-Century Paris By Ari Van Vliet, Richard Long

Soundboard Scholar

Napoleon Coste: Composer and Guitarist in the Musical Life of 19th-Century Paris, by Van Vliet, Ari is reviewed.

An Exploration Of Musical Theatre Vocal Technique And Style 1950 - Present, Emily Slomovits

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

My Honors Thesis Recital is the culmination of my study of how singing techniques and styles have changed in musical theatre since its Golden Age in the 1940's and 50's from a semi-classical, operatic style and technique, to a sound much more infused with jazz, pop, rock, and other contemporary music styles. This recital explores works by some of the greatest musical theatre composers and lyricists, starting with giants like Rodgers and Hammerstein and Leonard Bernstein, and working up to present day with modern greats like Stephen Sondheim, Stephen Schwartz, and Jason Robert Brown. I will demonstrate the evolution of …

Concert Recording 2017-03-30, Ronda Mains, Catalina Ortega, Ammi Lopez, Alaina Tuberville, Elizabeth Perry, Hannah Martin, Jeffrey Wright, Maggie Matheny, Kaitlyn Craven, Allison Risner, Dominique Phillips, Ruby Espinoza, Jordan Barnes, Donna Vickers

Concert Recordings & Programs

[00:00]. Canon / Johan Pachelbel -- [04:48]. Danse de la chèvre / Arthur Honegger -- [08:54]. Sixth grand trio, Op. 86, No. 3. II. Adagio ; III. Rondo / Frederic Kuhlau -- [17:04]. Londonderry Air / Percy Grainger arranged by Robert Webb -- [20:09] Eine kleine Nachtmusik. I. Serenade ; II. Romanze ; III. Menuetto ; IV. Rondo / W.A. Mozart -- [Track 10]. 34:39:0 Oblivion / Astor Piazzola arranged by M. Orris -- [Track 11]. 39:04:0 ""William Tell"" overture. Finale / Gioachino Rossini arranged by R. Thurston.

Concert Recording 2017-12-05b, Anastasia Mills, Wendy Stewart, Fiona Slaughter, Christopher Barnett, Alaina Tuberville, Maigen Anderson, Rosabelle Zhou, Rebecca Smith, Sara Remoy, Maggie Matheny, Miranda Smithey, Dylan Adkins, Jaden Adkins, Florencia Zuloaga, Emma Humphrey, Sunshine Mckee, Katelyn Barry, Hannah Mindeman Shuman

Concert Recordings & Programs

[00:00]. Évocations. I. Péruvienne ; II. Nigérienne / Henri Tomasi -- [06:32]. Sonata in G major. I. Andante ; II. Allegro / Francesco Saverio Geminiani -- [08:10]. Fantasia XIII. I. Largo ; II. Spirituoso ; III. Allegro / Georg Philipp Telemann -- [12:33]. Sonata in G minor, BWV 1030b. I. Moderato / J.S. Bach -- [20:15]. Sextet. II. Divertissement / Francis Poulenc -- [24:57]. Quintet, op. 56, no. 1 in B♭ major. I. Allegretto ; II. Andante con moto / Franz Danzi -- [35:35]. Six metamorphoses after Ovid, op. 49. I. Pan ; II. Phaeton / Benjamin Britten -- [39:22]. …

Concert Recording 2017-04-09a, Dylan Adkins, Miroslava Panayotova

Concert Recordings & Programs

[00:00]. 00:01:0 Concerto. I. Allegro ; II. Adagio ; III. Allegro / Michael Corrette -- [07:10] Bagatelle for low horn and piano / Hermann Nueling -- [13:00]. Sonata for horn and piano. I. Allegro moderato ; II. Poco adagio, quasi andante ; III. Rondo, allegro moderato / Ludwig van Beethoven -- [26:05]. Concerto in B♭major for horn and piano. I. Allegro / Reinhold Gliere -- [39:40]. Just desserts - frippery style. #1 ; #2 ; #5 ; #9 ; #12 / Lowell E. Shaw.

Concert Recording 2017-04-29a, Aya Rowe, Miranda Baker, Cheyenne Mccoy, Miroslava Panayotova

Concert Recordings & Programs

[00:00]. Sonata in D minor no. 2, op. 5. I. Andante ; II. Presto / Francesco Saverio Geminiani -- [06:32]. Cello sonata no. 3 in A major, op. 69. I. Allegro ma non tanto / Ludwig van Beethoven -- [16:22]. Piano trio no. 1 in B major, op. 8. I. Allegro ; II. Scherzo ; III. Adagio ; IV. 41:17:0 Allegro molto agitato / Johannes Brahms.